Brett Whiteley by Ashleigh Wilson

Author:Ashleigh Wilson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The Text Publishing Company
Published: 2016-06-10T16:00:00+00:00

The Whiteleys returned to Australia in a positive mood. They had been sinking into heroin dependency in the months before their departure but were now focused on their health. From Sydney, on 17 November, Brett sent Beryl a telegram: ABSOLUTELY MIRACULOUS RECOVERY WE ARE AGAIN TOGETHER BUYING OUR SUN IS SHINING EVERYTHING NOW FINE LOVE BRETT.

The love triangle had not yet ended. Brett, Wendy and Michael Driscoll didn’t show up to the December wedding of their friend Peter Tregeagle, and the explanation that reached the wedding party was that the three had been involved in an argument outside the house at Lavender Bay. Brett had told a passer-by to leave them alone. ‘I am the husband, she is the wife and he is the lover,’ he said. ‘We are having a domestic.’

As 1973 came to an end, Brett turned his attention to his forthcoming exhibition at Kym Bonython’s gallery. It was a drawing show that would show his development as an artist since he first left for Europe. More than eighty drawings would be included, from 1960 on and spread across various parts of Brett’s recent history: Christie drawings; bathroom pictures; drawings from Deya, Calcutta, Fiji; a bonsai tree; lovemaking. On his recent trip to London he had found a folio of early drawings of Christie, animals and the bathroom series. These were combined with recent pictures from Harar, Charleville and Lavender Bay, and one titled Lover on the Phone, an ink drawing of Wendy talking to Driscoll. There was an unfinished picture about Rimbaud and A Season in Hell, and three pictures commissioned by the new National Gallery under the collective title Life Cycle.

The front of the Drawings catalogue showed a photograph of Brett by Greg Weight. He was sitting on a wicker chair at the gasworks, with Self Portrait After Three Bottles of Wine leaning against the wall behind him. He stared at the camera through binoculars. Weight loved taking photographs of his friend at the gasworks: Brett was always moving, a restlessly creative figure—there was an impatience about him that Weight admired—while the studio itself, old and creaking, had an irresistible ambience as well.

Even critics who disliked Brett’s themes acknowledged his skills as a draughtsman. The exhibition demonstrated his command of line, the way he could capture the essence of his subject with only a few simple sweeps.

Brett said drawing made him comfortable. If he was going to prison and had the choice between a brush, pencil and nib, he’d take the nib: ‘I stalk drawings. To start a picture is very easy; drawing not so much. You’ve got to see the drawing reasonably, then act the vision out. The gods are either on or off-side.’

Before the Bonython show opened, Brett was already planning his next step. At the end of his notebook from Africa, past the assortment of words and images—photographs of Wendy, a poem (‘union, swift union, find / the love that leaves free yet powerfully binds / two people exactly to the rhythm’), a

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